Rising political extremes, shifting alliances, and competing visions of global order collide as leaders improvise their way through economic anxiety and geopolitical recalibration. Matt Gertken hops into the fray to help the cousins probe the uncomfortable overlap between left-wing populism and right-wing nationalism, the strategic ambiguity surrounding Taiwan, and the high-stakes bargaining shaping the future of Ukraine. What happens when power politics, domestic fragility, and global insecurity all peak at the same time?

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Timestamps:

(00:00) - Introduction and Episode Setup

(00:40) - Trump and Momani's Unlikely Friendship

(02:17) - Analyzing Trump's Political Moves

(13:05) - Japan-China Tensions Escalate

(17:54) - Geopolitical Implications for Taiwan

(30:20) - Russia-Ukraine Peace Plan Discussion

(37:19) - Europe's Commitment to Ukraine

(38:34) - Ukraine's Strategic Calculations

(39:21) - Ukrainian Public Sentiment

(40:43) - Debating Russia's Military Competence

(43:10) - The 28-Point Plan and Zelensky's Political Future

(43:34) - Economic Interests and Rebuilding Ukraine

(44:38) - Security Guarantees and Diplomatic Challenges

(56:50) - Trump's Role and Strategic Ambitions

(01:01:39) - Conspiracy Theories and Speculations

(01:02:40) - Debating China's Role in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

(01:03:50) - Speculating on Ukraine's Future and European Dynamics

(01:05:36) - Potential Outcomes of a Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal

(01:11:16) - Historical Analogies and Russia's Political Future

(01:21:06) - Geopolitical Shifts and the Role of China

(01:26:49) - Thanksgiving Anecdotes and Closing Remarks

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Referenced in the Show:

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Geopolitical Cousins is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com

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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.

Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com

Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416

Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap

Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe

--

Marko Papic is a macro and geopolitical expert at BCA Research, a global investment research firm. He provides in-depth analysis that combines geopolitics and markets in a framework called GeoMacro. He is also the author of Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future.

Marko’s Book & Newsletter: www.geopoliticalalpha.com/marko-papic

Marko’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marko-papic-geopolitics/

Marko’s Twitter: https://x.com/Geo_papic

Marko’s Macro & Geopolitical Research at BCA: https://www.bcaresearch.com/marketing/geomacro

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Geopolitical Cousins.

I am your other Jacob.

Matt Gerkin joins the episode today as the third Musketeer alongside Jacob and Marco.

Leave, review and rate the show if you haven't already.

That's it for me.

Let's dive in.

Alright.

Portos, Aramis, Athos.

We're together again.

Um, it's nice to see y'all.

Um, we're gonna begin.

We're, we're gonna do two things quickly and then we're gonna spend most of our

time talking about Russia and Ukraine.

Um, but.

Marco wants to talk about comrade Momani and his visit with comrade Trump,

or, uh, hair, hair leader, uh, Trump.

I don't know what we should call him.

Um, I assume, Marco, that you saw, Trump is now dressing up in long

block, flowing trench coats with scarves after having met Momani.

Um, if, if you were living under a rock, uh, Momani and Trump had a meeting,

um, they were extremely friendly with each other, friendly with each other.

Afterwards, uh, Momani was asked in front of Trump whether he held to his previous

statement that Trump was a fascist.

And before Momani could answer, Trump said, just, just

tell them, yes, that's fine.

It's, it's simpler than explaining it and gave him a nice little pat on the side.

We should all be, we shall have somebody who looks at us the way that

Donald Trump looks at the comrade.

So, Marco, please cook.

What do you wanna talk about here?

Well, first of all, uh, I also wanna say welcome to

our, uh, third moste, Matt kin.

Long time.

Of course.

We've all worked together for now almost, I mean, throughout the last two decades.

So for longer than I think we're.

We're willing to admit, given that we're now getting old.

But, uh, Matt, good to have you on, on our pod as the third cousin.

Yes.

It's great to be with you guys as always.

So, uh, let's, let's dive into it.

Look, I think what was really interesting about this is it was extremely friendly.

I wasn't that surprised.

Trump likes winners.

He's impressed by winners.

So anyone who's accomplished anything in life, Trump is like,

Hmm,

I like that.

Um, and for all the, uh, Cuomo or all the Cuomo, um, criticism that

Momani has never had a job in his life, the truth is he did crush him.

You know?

So, uh, that's, that matters.

The second thing is, and this is where I would love to ha have Matt's thoughts

on this, what I thought was actually significant from President Trump's.

Signaling, his behavior, his body language, the tone of his

voice, the soft touch of Amani's forearm, all those little nuances.

What I get from that is that, you know, he's looking at the lay of

the land inflation affordability, or the number one thing.

He's got his former advisor and one time campaign chief Stephen

Bannon, who's been calling for higher taxes on the wealthy for now years.

I mean, I think there's very little daylight between a OC and Stephen

Bannon, for example, on taxation.

And I wonder if we saw the first of perhaps a significant pivot on

at least macroeconomic policy by the Republican Party, by the MAGA

camp, maybe just by President Trump.

But that's something that I would flag that I think that there

are two ways to interpret this.

One is just Trump likes winners.

Momani crushed it, like he deserves respect in sort of Trump's, you know, uh.

Kind of like just medieval bronze age world.

Like, you know, he's a conqueror and he deserves respect.

On the other hand, I wonder if there's also some nuanced politics going on.

Matt, what do you think?

Yeah, it's interesting.

Definitely Trump is really good at, you know, collaborating

and, and, and co-opting any threats or perceived threats.

So I think there's part of that if there, because there's this really superficial

or commercial aspect, which is sort of like, if mom Donny is the new big

thing, then why spend a bunch of time being grumpy and sort of resisting it

or pretending that it's not happening?

Why not just get out in front of it and, and make him part of the Trump fan club,

which is what those pictures look like.

'cause Ani is kind of beaming, you know, to be in the Oval Office.

Um.

But it, you know, I don't know.

I, I guess if there's deep planning behind it, it might simply be that it's

convenient for Trump and the Republicans if they can cast the Democrats as all

socialists in the midterm election.

And so, elevating mom, Donny's importance, you know, beyond 50% of

New York to the idea that he represents the entire Democratic Party, that

seems that it could be a useful ploy.

Uh, but in terms of fiscal policy, yeah, eventually Republicans

are going to have to accommodate themselves to some revenue raising.

And in a way that's what Trump represents by using tariffs as a tool.

Um, but I'm not sure that, I'm not sure that they, as a party have anywhere near

the type of, you know, like for example, Bannon made a, what I think you were

referring to, Marco Bannon made a really simple suggestion, which was to raise the

highest income tax rate back to where it was under President Obama and Republicans

as a party weren't willing to do that.

I mean, I, ideology is just a circle.

So if you go far enough down the left and far enough down the right,

you will eventually meet each other.

And I sort of thought that was, to me, that would encapsulates

what happened in that meeting.

'cause Trump has gone far enough down the right and Momani has gone far enough down

the left that they're just meeting there.

Um, and they're having a party.

Marco, I I've been using, uh, your slide about the approval ratings for

Trump on the economy versus Biden.

And I dunno if you saw this.

I mean, when Biden left office, it was, his approval rating on the economy was 37%

and Trump had been hanging out around 45.

The latest a b, C Washington Post Ipsos poll had President Trump at.

37% as his approval rating on the economy right now, which is

where Biden was when he left.

So I think there might be something there also, Matt, to your point about,

uh, Momani beaming, it's funny, I, I, I wish I remembered what the account

was, but I saw this great social media person, uh, south Asian Social media

per personality, say everybody who is in this, who is sort of, you know, is

quote unquote Brown, makes this face when they're dealing with a white person

who is talking to them about things that they don't know about this, like fake

little smile to try and placate them.

And I, I thought that was actually a pretty, uh, cutting remark too.

I, I don't know.

I, I think it's, I think it's pretty strange.

Marco, when you say it's a pivot and fiscal policy, do you mean, you

mean raising taxes or you mean that actually Trump is gonna open up

the goodies and, and start giving out handouts and things like that?

Or do, do you mean both?

Well, I, I purposely use the term macroeconomic policy 'cause

I just mean like broadly dis, broadly defined, you know, uh, adopting more

and more things from the left because President Trump is kind of a chameleon.

He has done a lot of things that you wouldn't have expected a Republican

president to do, such as, oh, I don't know, like being anti-free trade.

That used to be more of a democratic party domain, as Matt pointed out.

I mean, he did kind of raise taxes already on consumption, but one of the things that

he has been pretty steadfast and pretty traditional Republican, you know, his

greatest legislative achievement of his two terms is the 2017 tax cut, which was,

you know, Paul Ryan's, Paul Ryan, like passed that and was like, I'm out, you

know, and he opened up his umbrella and went back to, you know, the land of like

Hayek and Ronald Reagan, which, and he is never been seen from again, you know, Paul

Ryan's just like, my job here is done.

Uh.

So if you actually look at the jobs and tax cut, uh, act, um, tax cut act of 2017,

I mean, it is traditional just Republican policy and so that's what I mean.

Jacob, broadly defined macroeconomic policy.

Yeah.

Moving a little bit more to the left and seeking to counter

some, you know, like when Madani said, Hey, we had a good meeting.

We agree on affordability.

Well for example, like, you know, childcare, like free childcare.

I mean, did you guys agree on that?

You know, 'cause that would be a pretty big departure of the Republican agenda

and so I wonder if that Yeah, like maybe there will be some, uh, ways to look

at Yeah, expanding the welfare state and financing it by taxing people more.

Like, I, I literally mean that, you know,

well, a, a good test case, you know, the Republicans to end the

government shutdown had to promise that they would hold a vote on extending those.

Obamacare subsidies that had been expanded during COVID, and they do

technically owe the Democrats a vote and they would kind of undershoot their

own claim to be winning working class voters if they just nix those subsidies.

So we might just in a month or two, see a test case of whether the Republicans

can actually extend those subsidies just for a year past the midterm as

some kind of bribe to prevent voters from being too unhappy with it.

Because the issue is if healthcare premiums are going up anyway,

then everyone can blame them if they don't extend the subsidies.

Whereas if they extend the subsidies, there won't be as big of an

increase in, in, in, in premiums.

And you know, they get to say that they did something they could

even maybe rebranded as instead of expanded Obamacare subsidies.

They could call them trumpcare subsidies or whatever, you know.

But just to be clear, all I'm seeing is Trump, right?

Trump may be.

Creating an exit for himself.

Uh, he may fail because as Matt points out, like, you know, Senator Thune

like does not strike me as a dude who would've softly touched mom's.

And said, call me whatever you want, son.

I'm okay with that.

Well, it could, it could, it could succeed spectacularly

if Democrats take both houses and Trump is forced to endorse some of

their policies in legislation in 2027.

And if you don't like that, you don't like NBA basketball,

let me tell you that right now.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I'll, I'll close this out on this.

I just, I actually wasn't that like I, I feel like a lot of folks in New

York City are scared of Mom Donny.

There's been a fear thing around Mom Donny, and I have to say, I've never

been more scared of him as a politician than with the ruthless pragmatism that he

just showed that he was willing to walk into the White House with the fascist and

rub shoulders with him and talk to him.

That tells me that we're actually dealing with a much more serious political

operator who might actually be able to get things done versus the guy who was

quoting Eugene Debs in the Victory speech.

That guy is not gonna get anything done, but this guy, this guy could

actually get some things done.

The second thing is to Matt's point about Trump trying to elevate him to

make the next race about socialism, I think it also maybe serves to discredit

Momani with his base too, because mm-hmm.

We've gone from all of the social media about, you know, with the, with the song

that went viral and things like that.

He's, he's the leader.

He's gonna, you know, put things back together, affordability, everything else.

And then he's hanging out with Donald Trump, he's going on all the shows and

talking about how he's hanging out with Donald Trump and he is offering the old

police commissioner the job and like moderating himself in all these ways.

And I just, and I just think the last thing is, I really mean,

the thing about ideology being a flat circle, like it's perfect.

Like Ani and Trump have way more in common than the political

middle in the United States has.

And the worse the economy gets, I think the bigger that opportunity.

Is there in the middle, which, to your point about the Obamacare subsidies,

uh, none other than Representative Massey who earned some of Trump's

ire recently was out there saying, this is Republican economics.

We're just gonna push, like continuing to do this with Obamacare.

So I think the moderates are starting to look at Trump's approval ratings,

what he's doing with Momani, how it's all going to his head, the Bannon

folks, and the a OC folks basically saying the same thing, except with

different, you know, language and saying maybe there's a big opportunity there.

But, you know, maybe Hope Springs eternal.

Um, anything else you guys want to hit here before we move on?

Well, just last thing I would wanna say is, uh, don't forget Ma

Donny's rise to prominence was asking Trump voters why he voted for Trump.

Like that was the whole, like the first TikTok video he did was that.

And so, yes, you're right, Jacob.

I do think his supporters will start to accuse him of platforming, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Which is this accusation on the left that if you hold a conversation with somebody.

Who is like, you know, flirts with fascism, you're giving them a platform

and therefore you are, you know, I dunno, triggering people and causing them

anxiety, which is like, you know, life.

Uh, but what I would say is that in this case, like, let's not forget Mom rose to

prominence based on doing exactly what he did in the White House, which is like

sitting down and with a smile on his face saying like, alright, well, like we gotta

live together so let's figure it out.

And I think, you know, we should, uh, you know, whether you

agree with his politics or not.

I think that was.

That's what, that's, that's what Western civilization is about, you know?

So well done.

Momani

all about soft, soft handshakes between, uh, comrades and fers.

Okay.

Comrades and fers.

There's, there's the, there's the podcast title right there.

It's our title.

Yes.

Um, alright, let's move on to Japan and China.

Um, it took me a while to find the actual quote, but so Japanese prime Minister,

um, Taka Ichi, um, she was speaking dur during a parliamentary session and when

she was asked about a scenario involving a Chinese military action against Taiwan,

here's her quote, quote, if warships are u are used accompanied by the exercise

of military force, then however you look at it, it could be a situation posing

an existential threat to the country.

And then she went on, you know, to say that it might involve

Japan using military force.

Um, as a result of that existential threat, China has reacted to that by

saying it was shocking that it was a gray violation of international law.

Um, that it, uh, there was another one I had here, entirely unacceptable.

Matt, I'm sure you're gonna tell us about the head and the snake metaphor here too.

Um, it's caused a rather large spat in, in Japanese Chinese relations.

Uh, we've had everything from economic reprisals like travel warnings and

cancellations of Japanese movie premieres, um, and even threats over specific classes

of Japanese products into China, and then, you know, backwards and forwards.

Um, so I mean, I, I, I think this is actually something that we've

slept on a little bit, but Matt, uh, lead us up to it and tell us what's

going on with this Japan, China spat.

Yeah, it, it, it'll probably be a pretty big

quarrel when all is said and done.

I've been for the, you know, for the, I. You know, the ge, the guesswork

that you can do on this kind of thing, several months, they're,

they're gonna be clashing pretty hard.

It could extend well into next year.

Um, and China just today is starting to actually interfere

with airline passage to Japan.

Or initially they were just discouraging tourists from going to Japan.

Now they might actually be shutting down flights, so it, it'll escalate.

Uh, it is true that they're targeting, you know, seafood and, and, and

initially discouraging tourists.

Well, those are not the worst ramifications.

You know, there, there could eventually be a total tourist shutdown.

There could be, uh, rare earth embargo like they did in 2010 against Japan.

Um, but one of my colleagues, Jesse Curry, has made a great point,

which is that China still needs semiconductor equipment from Japan.

So they're not going to completely cut off their trade, but it fits within a long.

Story every few years, these two end up having a bit of a trade clash and

nationalist protests and these things.

I think it does make sense from Japan's strategic point of view that they

would need to defend Taiwan and if it were attacked, which is of course

a hypothetical, but if it were, they would, they would probably need to,

for their own supply security, it, it would fit with their own sort of grand

strategy over, over history to do that.

So she was stating what, what actually I've said for many years, and I'm sure

many people that look at Japan have said, but it's different when the Prime

Minister says it than anybody else.

I think it's not irrelevant here that she's the first

woman, prime Minister of Japan.

So she probably wanted to come out with a very stark sort of Elizabethan,

uh, national security policy and basically, uh, make sure that nobody's

gonna try to take advantage of her.

And I think she probably feels insecure because President Trump has

negotiated a trade truce with China.

And he at least initially acted as if Taiwan would be on the table

when he went to Bussan, South Korea to meet with Xi Jinping.

And I think his advisors quickly told him, well, no, we're not, we're

not trading Taiwan for soybeans.

That wouldn't really be a great trade from an American national interest perspective.

And so Taiwan kind of fell off of the menu.

Uh, but we know something's going on because Xi Jinping then called Donald

Trump and they talked about Taiwan.

And then he immediately afterwards called Takai to inform

her of what Xi Jinping said.

So there's some sort of back channel and behind the curtain

negotiation about Taiwan right now.

And this, I think this, the obvious point here is that Japan has a moment

where they can step forward and say, well, look, they're doing what the

US demands, which is an ally picks up a larger share of the burden.

They're increasing the deterrence around Taiwan.

Um, but they're also sort of in a tough situation because Trump doesn't wanna ruin

his own trade truths for Japan's sake.

So that means that now they're now engaged in a one-on-one, uh, mi at

least a miniature trade war with China.

Can I ask, uh, some questions, Matt?

Sure.

Go for it.

I guess that's why you're here.

So you have to say Yes.

Uh, first, can you, can you explain for our audience, like, you know, be

beyond just the semiconductors, right?

Taiwan produces whatever percent of global semiconductors.

It's a lot.

Uh, aside from that, you know, you mentioned that there's like

a geopolitical imperative for Japan to care about the Taiwan.

Can you explain a little bit about that?

Yeah.

Like why, what does that mean and what does it look like?

Yeah.

I, I think so.

I think it's fair to say based on their history, they, they're always.

Resource poor, they have to import their food and fuel.

That's still the case today.

They, they heavily depend on imports, especially energy.

Um, and those imports almost by definition have to go, you know,

from the Middle East through the Strai and Malacca and then up through

the Taiwan Strait or around Taiwan.

Obviously the Western Pacific is really big.

So you can of course, move your supply line into the Pacific if you, if

you wanna avoid the Taiwan Strait.

But if China had the capability to conquer the island, then they

would also have the capability to interfere with Japan's supply line.

So that would be a traditional, uh, a strategic threat to them.

And it's one that they're very sensitive to.

And one of the reasons why, you know, they fought China in the past and in,

and in the 1890s and early 19 hundreds, strove to gain control of Taiwan.

So.

It's, it's an island in, in their own island chain.

And China views it as sort of a China views that island chain, uh, from Japan

down to the Philippines and in, in southeast Asia as sort of a containment

that they need to break out of.

And, and Japan views it as a strategic approach, you know, when we can think

of like the Americans island hopping and, and taking Osaka and then being

able to run bomb raids into Japan.

So it's, it's just a, uh, it's an unfortunate turf war that's reawakening.

And, and of course, these two have the most ancient and antagonism,

uh, partly for those reasons.

Uh, so it, it does, what she's saying fits with probably what their strategic

planners are saying, which is that it's just not in Japan's interest

to let China take Taiwan by force.

How would you gauge, if you would, if we would have like a zero

to 10, you know, on China's reaction?

Not just based on its previous reactions to comments like this, but also how you

would've thought they would've reacted.

Yeah.

Do you

feel that China has reacted, you know, from zero to

10, like 10 outta 10 being like declaration of war zero, like sure.

Whatever invade us.

Like where would you put this?

Yeah, yeah.

They've kind of, so as a state, they've kind of underacted.

Um, but, but their reaction, but we should acknowledge that their reaction is still

building that this is an emerging crisis between the two or an emerging trade spat.

And so it, they are ramping up their response.

But I'd say right now they're going from like a. You know, they're

going from like a four to a five.

You know, they're, they're not, they're not moving up into

seven, eight type territory.

And, and I just, I would say that when it first happened, the Osac, the Osaka

Consulate General's comment that he would cut off Tai Taka ichi's head.

That was a huge shock.

That was like wolf, that was like wolf Warrior times 10, you know?

And, and everyone was like, whoa.

But the thing is that, that, that Beijing, he had to take that post down

and Beijing's response is a little bit different than what he said.

But,

okay, so I wanna, I, first of all, I think Jacob and I definitely

support policymakers threatening to cut off each other's heads.

I just, I just wanna say that, like, that's just a layup for us.

Thank you guys.

I mean, it, it definitely,

yeah, it helps business.

Thank you.

Keep, keep threatening.

It's good.

Yeah, I mean, like, we got Matt, Todd.

I mean, this is like a layup.

Like, I, I didn't even say it and it's my job to say stuff like that.

Uh, but the second thing is, um, you know, it's interesting.

What you just said.

You said the Chinese state is, you know, relatively common on this.

I think it, uh, there is a narrative out there that they're

preparing to, like invade Taiwan.

I think something like this, in a context of preparing to invade Taiwan

is a great opportunity to start laying the groundwork, groundwork for that.

They're, they're behaving quite rationally.

Beijing is, and almost conciliatory in a way.

But the other thing I wanted to ask you is, what about sentiment on the ground?

Because in the past, of course, there were like boycotts of,

you know, Hondas and Toyotas.

There was, uh, I think violence even, um, by pro, just, just protestors,

where China a couple of times thought it went outta hand, had

to kind of dampen those protests.

What about the civil society in China?

I mean, I, I, again, I feel like this statement has not

really irked anyone in China.

It's almost like they don't really care.

The cutting of the head was like, what?

But that was them to Japan, you know, like they're, I don't know.

What do you agree?

Do you think I'm reading too much into it?

Yeah, I think

the only thing is that I would, my, again, best guess on

how this episode is gonna play out.

I think they, there probably will be quite a bit of escalation.

Like in the end there probably will be pretty significant, like

impact on quarterly exports from China to Japan and Japan and China

and, and probably there will be nationalist protests on both sides.

That's my best guess, that this will ramp up quite a bit and there will

be some scenery like you're referring to in the 2000 tens, you know, um,

boycotts of Japanese, uh, cars.

And the thing is, this is easy now because of course.

Chinese EVs have been stealing market share anyway.

Yeah.

You know, in, in the past they, they'd had to switch to South Korean cars and then

they'd boycott South Korea for the, you know, terminal high altitude area, defense

missile thing, and then they'd go back to buying Japanese and they'd sort of, so

this is, I mean, it's obvious that China still plays its domestic market against

other countries as a, as a major weapon.

And it's, uh, and it's quite clear that that China, um, has some

latent social unrest that could be unleashed here if they want it to.

So I, I guess maybe that would be my, my point here is that if we don't see large

scale anti-Japanese protests in multiple Chinese cities, then that means that

the Communist party didn't want them to happen, didn't wanna play up the issue.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you don't think they were organic in the past?

Uh, I mean some kind of mix, but generally I think there's, there's

a, there's a local authority that, that would tend to allow a protest to happen.

And I think Japan is one area where you could kind of have consensus, you

know, if among the provinces of China, if there's one topic where there's

sort of willing to let people vent some social steam, that would be it.

Um, but my sense is that communist party, at least tacitly, allows these things.

Yeah.

But before we leave this, Matt, I I wanted to ask you two questions too.

The, the first, and I think you sort of said this, but I wanted to underscore it.

Um, do you think, do you think that what Taiki said was intentional?

Because I read her comments in the context of it, and I thought, I,

I, if I was putting myself in her shoes, I would've thought that was

a fairly innocuous statement at.

It felt like China was pouncing on any little thing it could

to make a big deal out of it.

So I wonder if, if you really think it was intentional or if it was

sort of just something she said and China wanted to, to pounce on it.

And then the second thing I wanted to ask you is what is China's objective here?

Because I've seen quite a lot of speculation that China realizes that

Taishi doesn't have a majority, that she's fairly weak domestically, and

if they can cause economic pain around this, maybe they can push her to the

exit and they don't want some kind of far right nationalist who's in power here.

You also juxtapose it with, you know, her mentor Shinzo

Abe, who threaded the needle.

Well here he was able to have very good relations with Xi Jinping and

yet hold these views at the same time.

And he didn't run afoul of China in quite the same way.

And I also, I I wanted to ask about intentions because the

last time this happened in 2012, it blew up in China's face.

The exact thing happened that always happens with China when it overreacts,

which is that everybody freaks out and starts making contingency plans

to not, um, worry about China.

Like in 2012, it was the rare Earth's thing where Japan starts spinning

up its own capacity and not relying.

On China anymore, or in 1995 where, uh, you know, China reacts very negatively

to things happening in Taiwan and it just increases popular support, um,

on Taiwan for exactly the opposite of what the Chinese are pushing for.

Um, so I don't know, like, is is there a point at which China would be like,

yes, we've achieved our objective, or do you think they just wanna play it out?

I, I, I can't see why China's pounce on pouncing on it so much, but I dunno.

Yeah, no, there are good points.

Uh, as far as I can tell, this is one of those confluence of factors that's,

this is one, one reason why I think it, it will escalate and it will get worse.

So it, if China's reaction so far is like a four or five, it might be

moving up, uh, in the coming months.

And then, and then Japan also, by the way, hasn't really taken trade

responses, but they might be forced to do that eventually as China escalates.

So I think it was completely intentional, um, not only because

she's the first woman, prime minister.

But, but more importantly, well, there's some, there's some real

interesting nuances to this.

Like, so for example, one of the sources of grievance in Japan, in, in recent

politics has been too much tourism.

And that, that, that bubbled up during the election campaign.

And the liberal democrats, you know, they've now lost both

houses of parliament, which as you guys know, is, is very rare.

You know, the last time that happened was 29 to 2012, and then prior to that

it was 19 92, 93 for a very short period.

And prior to that it was in the 1950s.

So it's very rare for the liberal Democrats not to be in

complete control of the country.

Their, their party is nervous.

Uh, they have this takeover.

Prime Minister who doesn't have a personal mandate, doesn't have

a majority, even becoming Prime Minister, she didn't actually get a

majority of, of the lower house vote.

She just got an a plurality.

So she's very weak.

Um, but she, the one thing she has going for her.

The one thing that the LDP can probably crank up is some nationalism.

And remember that they had a pacifist Buddhist party, Cudo that was

their partner and Cudo dropped off.

And now what they have is a more far ride, you could say

populist or anti-establishment party, the Japanese Innovation

Party as their coalition partner.

And so in other words, you now have a little bit more of a national

security oriented L-D-P-A-A.

Um, you, they don't have their pacifist coalition partner.

They do need to ramp up some support and they happen to want to reduce tourism.

And the, and the biggest bulge in tourism was Chinese people traveling to

Japan after the removal of zero COVID.

So in effect, what she did was just pop the Chinese tourism bubble.

And it's interesting, it has a negative effect on their economy,

but it might actually help to reduce some of the grievances.

It might actually generate a little bit of support for her administration,

which otherwise doesn't have a great base of popular support.

Now, just real quick, on the flip side though, I do think you're right

that China pounced on this as well.

So again, it was a sort of confluence of incidents.

'cause from China's perspective, it was meaningful that they said that they

openly, that they would defend Japan.

It does sort of raise the deterrence bar.

Um, I'm, I'm sure I haven't checked, but I'm sure it's not the first time

the statement's ever been made, but it is a significant, uh, uh, act

of de or statement of deterrence.

And China also wants to lean on the allies, uh, as the United States

is basically, Trump administration is taking a very transactional

approach, negotiating with China.

And this creates an opening and it's, it's actually somewhat similar to

the way that Russia is meddling with.

You know, airspace and NATO countries, or sabotaging railroads In Poland, there's

this effect where Trump is raising the US as a great power negotiating bilaterally

with Russia and China, and effectively declaring spheres of influence and, and,

and tacitly giving them, or implying that he might give them the sphere

of influence in Ukraine and Taiwan.

He's declaring his own in Venezuela, and as he plays this big power, uh, sphere

of influence game, it's the allies that kind of get the shaft and then

his interlocutors like Russia, China, they get to actually push the envelope

a little bit in dealing with small neighbors that are allied with the us.

Yeah, well j just wait till she visits, visits, uh,

Yassa, Kuni shrine, and then, then we'll really get some fireworks.

Yeah, because I expect, I expect she will.

Um, she

probably will, probably will.

Let's, let's turn to Rush Ukraine, which I think

actually dovetails with all of this.

Uh, I'm not gonna be able to do it all justice.

'cause if I, if I recapped everything that happened the last week, we'd

be here for 15 minutes and people don't wanna hear me recap things.

But let's just do the Cliff Notes version.

So there's this Trump administration, 28 point Ukraine peace plan.

Unclear whether is this Russian demands that got sort of put in

the Trump administration's mouth.

Marco Rubio described it as a living document.

So it was just a, like, this is where we're starting the conversation, whatever.

Um, the Ukrainians said it was unacceptable, but came back

and they have a 19 point plan.

And they say they're very close, uh, on some kind of deal, but that

Zelensky needs to, uh, speak to President Trump as quickly as possible

to do some one-on-one negotiations, even over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Um, so there's that.

I love this.

The Europeans put out their response to the plan a couple of days ago,

not clear to me that anybody's read it beyond Britain, France, and

Germany, but they've put out their own response to a plan as well.

And then I, I think most interesting in all this.

Um, is that alongside this 28 point plan or the 19 point plan or

everything else that is going on, is also a separate proposal that

President Trump has given to Ukraine.

That apparently includes a security guarantee, which is

modeled on NATO's Article five.

So the 28 point plan.

And Al also basically the 19 point plan say that Ukraine's not gonna be a nato,

that's a foregone conclusion, but this separate proposal says that any future

attack by Russia on Ukraine will be seen as an attack on the transatlantic

community and that the US and its allies would respond accordingly.

And it's unclear whether Vladimir Putin has seen this one, whether

he would agree to this one.

Anything else?

Um, we've been here before a couple times now where the Trove

administration says it has a plan.

Peace is an I and they're really just talking to themselves.

Uh, it seems like Zelensky has figured out how to play this

situation a little bit better.

Um.

Russia, I don't know what Russia's doing.

I think, uh, if you look at the plan, all the plans imply that, uh, Russia

gets Crimea, uh, Dans luhansk and then the line of control wherever

it is today in Zappia and Husan.

So some significant territorial concessions above just danskin luhansk,

but reflecting the battlefield today, um, I don't know where do, where

do you guys wanna start with this?

Because I look at it and I see much ado about nothing because of course

Ukraine wants to see the, wants it to seem like it's being cooperative.

It learned earlier this year what it looks like if it doesn't look cooperative.

Um, it doesn't seem to me that anything that's being talked about as something

that Russia will agree to, especially if that's separate proposal on security

guarantees is part of the package.

Uh, and the Europeans just seem to be talking to themselves,

which is always the case.

So where are you guys at?

Do you think this is more important?

Am I, am I guilty of, uh, dismissing it just because it's our fourth

time around so far this year?

Great.

That's, that's why you're here.

And Matt, and maybe Matt will thread the difference, or he'll

tell me that I'm also an idiot.

It's great.

You know, I, I think it's significant just because I think Russia

would be insane not to take up this deal.

I mean, the, the Trump administration puts forward a proposal that includes,

like, at least in the original 28 points, I'm sure they've, they're gonna tone this

down, but they were talking about not only would Ukraine not join nato, but there

would be no further NATO enlargement now.

Like that's just a, like obviously the US doesn't really have a lot of immediate

prospects for NATO enlargement, but still it would just be a, an an amazing

own goal to just openly declare that for no reason, just throw that in there.

Um, but also, you know, reintegrate Russia into the global economy.

That was one of the provisions and it was effectively suggesting not

only sanction relief for the, the oil company sanctions on Russia that

went into effect this year, but.

Implicitly all the sanctions since 2022.

And, um, there were, initially, there were very close restrictions on Ukraine's Army.

Those have now been, uh, the, the, the limit on the size of Ukraine's

army has now been raised a little bit.

But, um, anyway, if you can imagine a situation where Russia gets the

additional part of donts that they're, that they've been fighting over,

um, they get a permanent non-nuclear Ukraine that's not a part of nato.

Uh, there's no further NATO enlargement and they get the sanctions removed.

I mean, this is just such a victory diplomatically that you would think

that, that the Putin administration would want to take it up.

And then if you have Trump and Putin agree, I think it actually with, with

some exceptions, uh, on the margins, I think that would be the end deal because.

Those two can obviously force anything on Ukraine, but I also think the u Europeans

would, would basically need to, uh, sort of acquiesce in a situation where the

US is already taking all the blame for doing this sort of dirty compromise.

And anyway, so, so my sense is that it, it could be pretty significant.

Now, I don't actually think the US will forswear all future NATO enlargement.

And the, and you're right, Jacob, the security guarantees is really key here.

And I, I think the us I think what we've seen over and over is that the

West doesn't really want to give real obligatory security guarantees, and

Russia wouldn't accept them anyway.

And so the result is some piece of paper that has to look robust enough

on paper that it's better than the Budapest memorandum, even though

everyone will walk away knowing that it's the same as the Budapest memorandum.

Okay, so here's what I think is critical here.

I think Europe's role is really critical.

I think both of you're massively dismissing it.

Why?

Because I think that secretly Europeans want the war to continue.

And I've only really come to that conclusion very recently because the war

started in many ways because the Biden administration decided to support a

much more aggressive Ukraine, obviously.

And Putin is to blame for the war in Ukraine.

I'm not discounting that, but there was an agreement.

It was the Minsk agreement negotiating by the Europeans.

It was unfair to Ukraine, but whatever.

Europeans didn't care.

They were like, look, let's just put this toes 'cause we don't wanna war.

And then the war happened.

It was very painful for Europe.

The entire continent went into a current account deficit due to energy costs.

Very, very bad.

People were talking about Europeans freezing.

They survived that.

Um, and now three years into the war like this is given Europe as a joint entity,

a resolved et to use European language.

You know, they're nation building.

I mean, hell, they're even doing things like m and a in

financial system because of this.

You know, like this war is, has infused Europe with so much energy,

whether it's to re-arm, Germany's talking about conscription.

European Commission is talking about completing the single market integration.

And I think that Europeans just know they're on the hook for

Ukraine either way, whether you're rebuilding it or financing the war.

So I actually think that Europe is comfortable continuing to support

Ukraine and because of that, on its own, on its own, by the way.

Any notion that they can't do it is ludicrous.

Of course they can.

Number one, they have money.

Number two, they have printing presses.

If they need to print the money, they printed money to buy more expensive gas.

Like relax.

Europe is rich.

They can finance this war.

And third of all, yeah, they do have weapons.

They do enough to keep the Russians at bay.

And by the way, the Russians are so bad at war.

Lemme just remind everyone listening to this that they conquer a

dica in February, 2024, and now they're going to conquer Rosk.

For those of you who can't use Google Map, let me just tell

you, they are 65 kilometers away.

It took the Russians two years to move 65 kilometers.

So pumped the brakes on this whole idea that like this war has to end tomorrow

or else Ukraine will fall apart.

I think Europe is comfortable financing them and they're

secretly not really telling why.

'cause it's very self-serving in Machiavellian.

So the question then becomes, what does Ukraine want?

And here, Jacob, I I agree with you on this.

I think Zelensky has gotten better and not just being like, you

know, so, um, black and white.

So one in zero, so binary.

He's saying like, look, let me read the proposal now.

Why?

Because he, I think he wants to extract the most he can.

If you're gonna sell a piece of real estate, you're, you're

gonna want a high price.

And so if he's gonna give up any territory, if he's going to

even, even softly agree to like, disagree with Moscow for the next

50 years, he needs something back.

And I think that's what you're getting.

Jacob.

I agree with you.

And he now knows Europeans are committed to financing this war.

So he does have some cards, you know, and so I think, um.

You know, one thing I would introduce to this is some polling though that

does suggest that Ukrainians are starting to lose faith in the war.

And so I have a poll from the, uh, Kiev International Institute of

Sociology, which has really good polling on just sentiment of Ukrainians.

It shows that at the end of 2023, only about 20% of Ukrainians

agreed with the view that Ukraine may give up some territory to

achieve peace as soon as possible.

So only one in five Ukrainians at the end of 23 was like, sure,

we'll need to give some territory.

Now it's at 40, it's at 40%, and it's increased significantly.

And not just because Trump got elected and they feel abandoned.

No, no, no.

That's not why it actually started declining well before that.

Now, at a, a similar poll shows that there's still about 60% of Ukrainians who

are willing to endure the war forever.

But I think that we need to kind of really think about these two poles.

Yes, I think Ukrainians are willing to fight Russians forever if Russians want

to conquer Kiev or Eastern Ukraine.

But what the Russians are saying by acquiescing to this 28 point plan is

that they just want the northwestern villagers tos, that they're too

incompetent to conquer themselves.

And so just to put a point to conclude all of this, I think Europeans and

Ukrainians are effectively saying, bro, if you want it, come and get it.

Oh, but you are really bad at actual war.

Why are we gonna give up everything?

Because you don't know how to fight.

I mean, this is the truth.

The truth is Russians are terrible at this.

We're talking about a territory the size of like Delaware

that they cannot conquer for.

Four years almost now.

And so the question I think that we need to answer, and I'm being a little

facetious here, but a little aggressive, but the question is like, why, why give

Putin that last sliver of territory?

Why not just like, squeeze him?

Now you might say, well, you're squeezing rock, uh, Ukraine too.

And I've always been the first to say that anyone who's followed this

podcast or heard me speak, I'm always like, Hey, you're bleeding Ukraine.

But Ukrainians seem to be kind of okay with that.

Europeans be, seem to be okay with financing it for

Machiavellian self-serving reasons.

You know, like why not just force Russia to prove itself in the field of battle?

Which again, it hasn't done.

To restate a very critical point, it took him a year and

a half to move 65 kilometers.

Let's pump the brakes on the Russians knowing what to do.

Uh, they don't.

Why not force them to go that extra mile themselves?

Yeah.

Anyways, I'm open to counters, feel like

I, I feel like sometimes my job is to be the optimist to your

bathing and nihilism, Marco, but I feel like I'm gonna be even more

cynical than you here for a moment.

First of all though, I wanna push back on this thing about Dan Nets because this

proposal is not just an Nets, it's, it's about large swaths of Zappia and Herone.

Now, I think now already

control.

Wait, wait, wait.

Jacob, wait, wait.

Hold on.

I gotta, I gotta interrupt you right away.

Go, go.

It's just about that, and here's why.

Russians control the rest and Ukrainians have no chance to recon it for as bad as

Russians are at offense or Ukrainians.

So the reason it is just about Northwestern Duns is because that's the

only piece of territory that Ukrainians currently control, that the 28 point plan

would force them to give to the Russians.

And, and to your point, if, if you're thinking about this as

a real estate transaction, then giving up this land that has been absolutely

destroyed and mined and everything else, and saying, okay, you can have this really

terrible land that you've destroyed.

Like okay.

You could sort of see the diminishing returns on that.

Um, I've been fairly complimentary of Zelensky all year.

I pushed back against you when you said that he made a mistake in the

White House, but you have Yeah, the 28 and I concede Yeah, I co see

that.

I think you were right.

Well, the 28 point plan said that he had to call

elections with within a hundred days.

And the 19 point plan says that he has to call elections as soon as possible.

So if we're being cynical about Zelensky, it's political future, he has every

incentive for this not to work because as soon as this deal goes into, into effect,

he has to start getting the wheels turning on Ukrainian elections and probably he

doesn't win the next Ukrainian election.

If I had to guess, I don't know if you have a poll on that.

I also just wanted to call out.

Um, this is all about the money, like one of the most shocking things to me.

The 28 point plan was this provision that, um, hold, I'm gonna pull it up here.

That, so that all these frozen Russian assets are gonna be invested in US

LED efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine, and that the US will

receive 50% of the profits from this venture and that the United States and

Russia will put together their own.

Fund investment vehicle.

I don't know what the heck to call it.

Uh, to, to, to quote, I

had to mute myself 'cause I'm laughing.

'cause you were, you were going with that, I'm sorry.

No, we're, we're aimed at strengthening relations and increasing

common interest to create a strong incentive not to return to the conflict.

And the European, they're the ones who wanna rebuild it.

So everybody's looking at the situation and being like, no, no, we wanna be

in line to get the money to rebuild these things that war has destroyed.

So there's that.

Um, the the last thing though, I, I just wanna say is that, um, it seems to me that

the part of this that is gonna make this like every single other time, and this is

where I'd, I'd appreciate pushback from you guys, is this separate proposal about.

A security guarantee to Ukraine.

Because even if Putin gets some document that says that, okay, NATO's not gonna

be enlarged and Ukraine is not gonna join nato, there's a parallel proposal that

says Ukraine gets a security guarantee.

That is like the NATO security guarantee.

Yeah.

So is it, is Putin really gonna say yes when part of this deal is that

there's a separate deal that says no, they won't join nato, but they,

but they get a security guarantee.

We'll call it the Trump security guarantee.

It's not a NATO security guarantee.

It's not Article five.

We're not calling it that, but we're giving them that.

I don't see a planet on which Vladimir Putin can acquiesce to that.

That's the red line, isn't it?

Am I crazy?

Well, so, so I, the thing is that the security guarantee that they may end

up producing could just be a document.

You know, that that's the thing is if it doesn't spell out that it really would

be a coordinated military intervention by the multilateral guarantor, then.

Then that's just a piece of paper, right?

That people can say, okay, you know, uh, we guarantee Ukraine security, but

they don't make any concrete pledges.

So for example, it would have to be referred to the UN

Security Council and discussed.

And of course, we all know where that goes.

So I'm just saying that I, I, so I agree with you in the sense that

Russia can't agree to it if it's real.

But if it's unreal, then what you could have is simply a, a situ. Now this is

maybe where you guys won't agree, but Russia can basically accept the terms the

US is offering to get the sanction relief.

And the question is, does it really need the rest of the don't

asks for domestic consumption.

I, I actually think that Putin doesn't actually need it.

He can actually freeze his line on the current line of control.

He can, the American agreement can state that this is supposed

to be a, a demilitarized zone.

And that would be the implication.

But you don't actually have to have Ukrainians pull back immediately.

You just have the Russians stop shooting and then the Americans lift sanctions.

And that's why I think those are the two key players here.

Because if, if Russia stop shooting and the US lift

sanctions on Russia, then yeah.

I mean, Ukraine can, can, you know, try to take European money to re

escalate the war, but at that point the Europeans might start thinking

that that's a waste of time.

So look, look, you know, that's why I think this could actually lead somewhere.

Look, I, I agree too, Matt.

I, I do think it can lead to something.

And all I'm saying is this, it has to come down to Ukraine saying

like, okay, we've had enough.

Uh, that's who I actually think is the only player.

So that's where maybe I disagree with you, Matt, like if Russia

and Russia and America come to an agreement, but Ukraine's like, no.

And they're financed by somebody who's like, yeah, we'll support

you for our own reasons.

Um, where I would go here though is that I don't think Russia

cares about strategic interests.

I, I, I'm in that camp.

I, I might be the only guy on that island, you know, I got a condo on it,

you know, bill Browder comes and visits.

We, we order pizza.

'cause he's, I think the only other guy who has my view, which is like,

I don't think Putin gives a fuck.

Like, nato, sch tomato.

He's gonna be dead.

You know?

He's cool, man.

Like, whatever.

Like give him security guarantees.

I got what I wanted.

I like the creativity of your thinking though.

Matt, could he freeze the lines here and like not care about the

northwestern corner of the Nets?

Maybe.

I think though, that he wants to call up his buddy George W.

Bush, get the mission accomplished banner, hang it.

You know, declare victory and it's, it's neater.

It's just like neater that it is all of don't bus,

but, but if, but if he gets, if he gets to shake the US

President's hand and, and the US defacto recognizes this territory and there's

sanction removal, are Russian people not going to see that as a victory?

Yeah.

I like the creativity of that.

That's cool.

Yeah.

I think you could be able to sell it if, if the three of us were in his like

office at the end of that incredibly long phallic table, like the three

of us are like on the very other tip.

Right.

I, I don't

wanna be there,

you know, but if we were and you proposed that to Vladimir,

I think he would be like, yeah, I like the, I like, you know, I like

the cut of your jib, but listen

hat on the head, what I'm,

where am I getting with this?

I, what I'm getting at this is that ultimately, like the reason Europeans

are as aggressive, I think as they are right now, and the reason they

always come out and say this is stupid, everyone thinks is 'cause they're

defending liberal internationalism.

Everybody thinks they're defending the sanctity of borders, right?

That's what the commentary in America kind of says.

And what I think is like, once the Europeans realized, and it took

him two years or so, it took me this long to figure out, and by the

way, it was a, a help of my Greek buddy, Costas, he knows who he is.

Love your brother.

But he like convinced me of this.

'cause I was like, just argue with my buddy.

And he's like, no, no, no man.

Like I think Europeans are cool with this.

He's right and here's why.

But he's only right now that we know that Putin does not have strategic

plans, that he's not gonna use nukes.

Finland is in nato.

And he's like, what Finland's in nato?

Like, I didn't notice.

Whatever.

I'm not hearing it.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

No it's not.

You know, like once Europeans realize this really is just about Russian

domestic politics, when they realize that Putin is just doing this for

petty reasons, he really does just want Northwestern donates villages.

Then Europeans get to kind of.

The threat of nuclear war is much lower.

The polls get to fly around their F sixteens.

Everybody gets to like, like puff out their chest, be peacocks and build

their defense industry, which is just a fiscal stimulus and just a jobs program.

My point is that that's what emboldens them to support Ukraine because this

has now become a war over villages.

Nobody can find on Google Map.

People don't even know where this is, and because of that, I think the pettiness

of it could extend the conflict, although I am in your camp, Matt, that I think we

do have to discuss it even though it's the fourth time and Jacob St. Tired.

I think that, yeah, I think that we are the closest we've ever

been, but it really just comes down to Ukraine and how exhausted

they are as another modern bodies.

Also Emin pointed out, I'm just shouting out some of my Greek Armenian buddies.

Clearly I'm informed by ottman and discussions about this.

Real, real quick.

I, I wanna

say something real quick, which is, first of all, you

said about Russians being shitty at war, Marco, I just, this idea

of a US Russia joint venture for economic prosperity in the region.

You think that Russians are bad at war?

Watch what they do with capitalism.

They're really shitty at that.

I can't believe we want a joint venture with these people.

And to your point about Putin being petty, he's only had to downgrade his ambitions.

His real goal is to conquer all of Ukraine.

He believes that Ukraine doesn't exist and that Ukraine should be part.

Of course he does.

He's not totally believe

that.

No, he doesn't care.

Yes does.

No, he doesn't.

He deeply care.

Look,

that's like, I believe that I will, uh, get a six pack.

You know what I mean?

Like, it doesn't matter.

Like he, he doesn't, he, he can't get it.

He's not gonna get it.

And so therefore he's like, eh, I'll take what I can.

I don't think he does.

I don't think Putin looks beyond his lifetime.

Somebody who's strategic truly believes that I'm here to help

Russia gain, its whatever.

I just don't think he thinks like that at all.

I think he just wants to be a trillionaire, which he is.

God bless him.

Well, and and that's it.

And we'll, and we'll never get down to the end of it to, but to

me it comes down to this point.

Yes.

Maybe I'm making it too simplistic, which is, I don't think, and,

and maybe you'll push it.

Push back against us by saying he's just petty and he wants the villages in esque.

But I don't think Putin can agree to anything that includes

a security guarantee for Ukraine.

And I don't think Zelinsky can agree to anything that doesn't

have a secu, a robust security guarantee for Ukraine itself.

And to your point, I agree.

I think Zelensky and Ukraine can keep fighting that the, and that

the Europeans will support them.

And I don't think some sort of elegant one China esque sort of diplomatic, you know,

wordsmithing is gonna get us around that.

Either there is a security guarantee or there isn't a security guarantee.

And unless we, unless one of them have given up because of their domestic,

uh, constraints, like I think we'll just be in the exact same disagreement.

Because Trump will look at the Russians and be like, okay, do we have a deal?

And Vladimir will be like, well, have you torn up the security guarantee thing?

And Trump will be like, no, no, no.

I gave them the real proposal.

He is like, okay, well there's no deal.

And then he goes to Zelensky and says, do we have a deal?

And he is like, well, where's my security guarantee?

It doesn't have to be nato, but it has to be a security guarantee.

But see, this is why I, this is why we're Overrating

Ukraine's agency here, because they, they would have to fight on with, I

mean, without any American support, no intelligence support, no funding.

Uh, I, I take Marco's point, you know, Europe may be willing to extend the

funding for longer than we expect, but how long and can it really compensate for

the total absence of American cooperation?

I mean, what if America starts actively undermining Ukraine?

Well, long,

well, long enough.

What if, what if America threatens to, to, to give Russia control of the Black Sea?

You know, I mean, like, it's just, it's, it's such a, it's such a ne, I

mean, specifically Odessa, like a key part of this negotiation is that Ru is

that Ukraine can still export goods, and you would expect that the Americans

would uphold their normal interest of saying, well, you know, Russia's not

gonna be able to turn this into a lake.

But at the Americans, let the Russians casually blockade Ukrainian exports.

I mean, that's pretty devastating, even from a European point of

view to their economic viability.

So I it is just, I'm not sure.

Not really.

I'm not sure that, yeah, I think it is.

You, of course, they've got railroad, their

exports have, well they, their exports have rerouted through

the Baltic and through other ports.

Look, look, look, here's what I would say.

How No,

no, but the, but the point here though, just to drive

this a little further, is Ukraine can wage, you're saying that Ukraine

can wage this war independently with just European support indefinitely.

And I'm thinking, no, not indefinitely.

Yeah.

You know, maybe another year.

I'm saying long

enough, low.

Yeah, long enough that Jacob has to listen to this for the fifth and

sixth time and, and long enough.

Look, what we're debating here is whether this is over right now.

Like, no.

Yeah.

Can Ukraine, can Ukraine, uh, wage the war for another six

months to get a better deal?

Definitely.

And the other thing is Russians to prove that they can conquer

more than 60 kilometers in 18 months.

Like, those are my questions, right?

Like, yeah.

My point is just this, Matt, if Northwest Ettes has to be handed

over to Russia, I think Ukraine and Europe are gonna say why?

Let them prove

it.

You, you, to your point, even my, my own view that

I'm sort of expounding here, it still allows for another 12 months.

Because if you think about Russia's, Russia's own belief is that they can

break that barrier, obtain that last piece of land, and then Trump before

the midterm is going to wanna deal just as badly as he wants one right now.

So, you know their own perspectives, but you just answered

six, nine months.

You just answered maybe.

So here's a, here's a potential solution to this.

Russians eventually win.

What they want, which is this northwestern corner of Don's the size

of Delaware, but it just takes them another 18 to 24 months to do it.

I'm not saying that's actually gonna happen.

I think Ukraine will sell that piece of territory for something cooler.

The problem for Ukraine is this, the problem for Ukraine is that they just

let Russia conquer that organically.

Well then you don't extract anything from the West, namely from Trump,

who seems to be obsessed with a deal.

You, you see what I mean?

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

Like if Ukraine, like there was a EU membership in that 28 point

plan, there's all sorts of goodies.

Like you don't want to just sit there and let Russia just slowly and

competently and terribly eventually get that you wanna sell it.

Because I think even with European or even with American

help, you're gonna lose that.

We all agree with that.

Russians are terrible.

But yes, eventually in 36 months, they'll conquer 24

months, 18 months they'll get it.

So I think Ukraine does have incentive.

To get a deal.

I just don't know if they can parlay European support for European Machiavelli

reasons for, uh, for a little bit better deal from Americans and Russians.

Now, one thing I, I have for you guys is why does Trump want the deal?

And like the answer is noble peace breaks, but wait, let's pump the brakes.

I think, Jacob, what you're pointing out all these cool deals with Russia

and we're gonna have joint ventures.

There's two ways that a liberal might say what's going on here.

Trump wants a noble peace prize and second, Trump wants to make

money with, you know, Vladimir Putin in the joint venture.

Okay, fine.

I have a third option.

Okay.

I think that a bunch of third rate strategists that Trump

has employed as his foreign policy advisors have convinced him that

he can flip Russia away from China.

Oh God.

It just smells too the, the reverse, the return of the reverse Nixon.

God, somebody like the hair on fire.

Yeah.

It just smells like kid though.

It smells like it, it smells like, Hey Russia, we're gonna do

all these great things together.

Well, Marco know.

Well, I,

I, I actually showed a letter of this, I dunno if you read

some of the reporting on this, but apparently the genesis for getting

serious about this deal was the Jared Kushner saw the, the success around

the Gaza piece plan and really pushed Trump to say, now's the time that you

can really go for Ukraine, Russia.

So he went to Jared.

I think what you're smelling is, uh, is that he went to Jared.

But listen,

what what I would say about this is like, I actually, I really think

Trump's like enthusiasm, naivete, and optimism is, is good for the world.

Like, he's like, I can flip anyone.

And he takes it as a challenge that someone says No.

The only problem is that if Russia has any sense, like if Russia

has modest iq, geopolitical, it knows it can't trust America.

You cannot trust America on this.

You are two years away from a OC becoming president, scrapping

every single bit of that deal.

You know what I mean?

So like, if you are Russia, I, I just think the only thing I would

say, if anyone is listening to this podcast from the White House, I

would just tell you this right now.

You can't, like, they're not gonna listen to you.

You know what I mean?

They're not gonna make, they're, you're not gonna be able to reverse

the Russians because they can't trust the next administration.

It may not be that you are not being genuine.

It's just that it's very difficult, I think to do that.

But it does smell to me like that could be one of the reasons.

But yes, I do also think that Trump just wants to end the war.

Maybe it's, but, but all thinks it's pointless.

Also,

Al also though, there's no way that American strategists are

thinking like, I know what you're saying, Marco, but they're not thinking

that Russia's trustworthy on the issue of realigning to rejoin the West.

And especially not given everything you've just said about Europe.

Right.

If Europe's whole idea is that they're going to soak the Russians.

And mobilize their own economy by opposition to Russia, then that certainly

doesn't pave the way for a realignment of Russia, even if the Americans did want it

and did think that Russia could deliver.

It's

as you know, Matt, it's something that's very popular in

the more right of center circles.

Yeah, and by the way, I myself have written about this, one of the worst

piece of geopolitical analysis I've ever done was in 2021 when I thought

that Russia was about to flip.

And you know, like,

yeah,

they had an opportunity to, they had an opportunity, they

had an opening, but I think that they correctly knew that that wouldn't work.

Well that, you know, that goes back to the issue here, which

is that those two economies actually are fairly complimentary these days.

I think one thing I hear over and over again from people who were

sort of bred in the international relations and academia background.

Is that Russia and China don't like each other, and it is all these, well, that's

just, that's bullshit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

These irrelevant points about the fact, well, yeah.

I mean, a lot of countries don't like each other.

Nobody likes each other.

The, the point is that the, the China in the 1960s that was competing with Russia

was not a resource import dependent China, that was heavily industrialized, you

know, and Russia at that time wasn't as starving for capital as they are today.

So the relationship is actually pretty strong.

And it would be, it would be completely irresponsible for their strategists on

either side to try to betray each other.

And it would also be irresponsible for the Americans to truly betray Russia for,

for the embrace of, I mean, to embrace, to betray Europe for the embrace of Russia.

So these things are just unfortunately, pretty fixed.

Um, Trump.

You hear that a

lot though.

Trump.

Trump.

Well, I know you, you do Trump.

I'm just saying Trump gets some credit for recognizing that kicking down the

can, kicking the can down the road is actually a good policy, you know, and

basically prolonging the negotiation.

Because, 'cause if you don't, you, you wind up in a bifurcated, you know, Russo,

Chinese block versus the west, which I think is where we're going anyway.

But there's a big difference between going there tomorrow

and going there in 20 years.

Yeah.

I, I want to get to that, but before we go, can, can, can conspiracy Jacob,

just make a brief appearance here?

'cause I'm, I'm feeling please.

I'm feeling the tingles.

We need a hat.

We need a hat for, for it.

I need the

cons.

I don't think I have a hat in here.

I'll, I'll get a conspiracy.

Jacob it cone hat.

Okay.

This is conspiracy.

Jacob.

I have literally, wait, I have, I have a birthday crown that my daughter gave me.

Hold on.

I can do that.

Yes, that.

All right.

This is

great.

Here we go guys, for those of you watching on YouTube.

All right.

Conspiracy.

Jacob, here's my unfounded, uh, conspiracy maybe.

Maybe when Donald's on the phone with Xi Jinping, what Xi Jinping is

saying is, you know this Vladimir Guy, he's losing it a little bit.

I hung out with him a couple weeks ago.

He's talking about harvesting organs from young children.

Like the guy has lost the plot a little bit.

So could you please stabilize this?

Because if he keeps doing what he's doing, he's gonna fall and I'm gonna

have a total cluster fuck on my border.

So you want me to buy the soybeans?

You want the trade war, uh, to be relaxed.

You want everything else you make, you make a Russia, Ukraine peace deal.

And then like you could talk with us about buying your soybeans and other things.

How do you like conspiracy?

Jacob?

You like that?

Is that good?

That was good.

That was good.

I mean, it does sound like a lot of the stuff I see on the internet.

I mean, no offense, but I mean, the thing is this, this is, there's

this responsible stakeholder version of China that just will not die.

And I, and I don't say this out of like hatred of China, I just

say it out of observation where.

China's supposed to be the one that, um, that brings this war to a conclusion

and really, it, it could pretty easily if it, if it actually did, uh, start

to punish Russia on the import channel.

And, and it just doesn't really do that 'cause it doesn't

see an interest in doing it.

I

like the way Matt said.

It sounds like what I see on the internet.

Matt, what do you think we do for a living here?

I know my friend know actually we don't do it for a living

'cause we don't get paid, but

Well, uh, I guess, I guess, uh, maybe, I mean on the

social, uh, on the social networking,

who knows of the inter reps May, maybe there's a

joint Russia venture for two pod two cousins in Russia to join with us.

I don't know.

You know, Jacob,

you're gonna get aggregated.

That's right.

That view is gonna get, we want me to

be aggregated.

That's right.

That would be

great.

That's right.

That's a great problem for us to have.

But to your point, but to your point, Jacob, you could, you could

be onto something in this way though.

If, if China actually delivers on this energy dialogue that Xi Jinping and

Trump talked about, and we see a large increase in oil purchases, then that does

implicitly, uh, displace Russian imports.

And would I think it would signal that like tactically Xi Jinping is

telling Putin it's time to, it's time to move toward a ceasefire.

Yeah.

I I don't think he really has an interest in doing that,

but maybe that would happen.

Un unless he has a sense that things are getting bad in Russia.

'cause I, I think I'm more on team Ukrainian agency than any

of you because I think Ukraine can continue this indefinitely.

I think they've shown that they can use their drones to knock out Russian energy

infrastructure and everything else.

And Zelensky is finally in the position where he can look at Vladimir Putin and

say, fine, you wanna do this forever?

Like, yes, I can't take back these villages in donk, but I

can make it really hurt for you.

Like I finally have some, it's as

symmetric

so.

Well, it's

as symmetric.

You're right, it's asymmetric.

Like, you know, and by the way, all of this.

Is a product of Russia just not being tough enough in a way to use like

tactical nukes and all this other stuff.

They're not willing to take it to that level.

So Ukraine can now poke them.

Europeans feel relatively safe to finance this and I think it's brought us down

to what, where, I agree with Matt.

I think we're close to the end.

Okay.

I

just think that, you know, like Zelensky just needs a little

bit more, he needs to prove himself to be a little bit tougher and then

to sell for the highest, uh, price.

That's not a bad strategy.

And I, and by the way, that was your original point, Jacob,

when you and I disagreed, so.

A a a broken clock is right twice a day, Marco.

Um, okay, so let, let's close then with this.

'cause we, I think we have about 20 minutes left.

I don't know how guy long you guys can go, but I have about

20 minutes before I have to go.

Um, so let's say that you guys are both right.

Let's say that I'm wrong about this.

And let's say that we get a deal, whether it's the 19, well, what are we right

about?

Let's say that there's a deal.

Can we just like a deal in the

next, what's two months?

Like in the next three months?

Yeah, in the next,

I I think the, I think the window, the window

should be the US midterm.

That's, that's the window here because Russia might wanna push one

more time in the spring and Trump wants a deal before the midterm.

And that's where if, if Putin just delays forever, then at some point.

Trump probably loses appetite to give him so many goodies.

Okay, well let's let, let's take that then.

Let's say there's a deal by the midterms.

I think that's a little long, but that's fine.

Let's, let's grant the point.

So there's a deal by the midterms.

How does the world change geopolitically?

Like when our clients are coming to us, like many months from now,

before the midterms and, and there is a deal, what does that look like?

Are we talking about joint Russia, US ventures running

around to rebuild Ukraine?

Are we talking about, you know, unlimited corn and sunflower and

wheat exports from the Black Sea?

So we don't have to worry about that anymore?

Are we talking about Ukraine being welcomed into the eu?

Like how, what does is, is Russia getting flipped?

Is China getting flipped?

Who's getting flipped?

What's getting flipped?

Like if there is a deal, like what's the next day look like

from your guys' perspective?

Well, I don't think there's any more, uh, exports.

So, uh, I published a chart.

It's now, um, a little bit outdated, but uh, actually Ukraine is back

in terms of its exports of wheat.

To, you know, it's not completely back to the pre-war levels,

but it is pretty much there.

You know, you're talking maybe a couple of million tons more of

annual we exports, so it's down to about 16, maybe a little bit higher.

It was at 20, you know, so maybe you could get a couple of million

barrels of, uh, a coup, couple of million tons of wheat out of Ukraine.

More.

I think the world is changed because, um, yeah, I do think EU membership

is on the cards for Ukraine.

Absolutely.

I think the EU wants those migrants through the labor market.

I think they want to rebuild Ukraine, and I think there'll be

a, like a feeding frenzy for that.

I think Ukraine becomes a garrison state, and quite frankly, I think it's gonna

be a great economic development story.

Yes, there's corruption.

Yes, there's problems.

Honestly, those things exist in South Korea to this day.

Um, and it didn't matter, you know?

So I think, uh, you've got a very large piece of European territory that's

gonna get rebuilt and it's gonna be a pretty interesting source of innovation.

Dynamism.

These are veterans.

This is their greatest generation rebuilding.

Like you got, you're talking like 35 million Ukrainians just, you

know, are just bulled up about holding Russia at the gates.

It's incredible.

I think it's a cool story.

Um, on all the other stuff, I think we, there isn't much that

difference, you know, like, I don't think we can go pre February.

I don't think the sanctions are gonna be completely removed against Russia.

Uh, they, I mean, they, they're already exporting all the oil

that we're gonna export anyways.

Diesel, that's something that is gonna flood the markets.

I think that could cause oil prices to go down as, as Russian

diesel floods the market.

But like, I think any trade that happens after the war ends is temporary.

I don't think Europeans don't rem militarize.

I think they do.

As I said earlier, I think it's a fiscal and jobs program.

It's like the nation building program.

Uh, I don't think they reverse all of those things.

So I think what happened in February, 2022, we're in that world.

We're in a post February, 2022 world.

It's not like central banks who bought all the gold because America weaponized

the dollar are gonna like, oh, we don't need this goal, let's sell it.

You know?

You know what I mean?

Like, I think what happened in February, 2022 is still here with us.

I think there's just a regional story of like, wow, Ukraine is the

next South Korea, effectively the next economic development story.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Um, one thing is that I see it as sort of the best of both worlds for Europe.

You know, Marco, you were making the case that Europe would actually

prolong the war, but Europe can greatly benefit by the idea that the

war is sort of put, uh, closed off and put at least behind a ceasefire.

Um, but then all the other things you said are still true.

Like they have to stimulate their own economy, regear their indu industry.

They have to continue to think long-term about military buildup because of

course there's still this risk of Russia being belligerent in the future.

'cause that's all stemming from Russia's long-term economic and social decline.

So that you, you, you do have to be prepared for some future Russian

aggression, even if it never materializes.

So, yeah, for sure.

I mean,

so you, you get, you get private capital coming out of

the woodwork in Europe that was intimidated by the war and you'd

be matching that with the fiscal.

Um, I guess that's another way of saying what you were saying, which

is that this would be very bullish for Europe and not just Ukraine.

Well, one thing I would say is that, sorry to interrupt you Matt.

I was just gonna jive on top of you and say like, well, you know,

I've painted a picture of Putin as a kleptocrat who doesn't really

care about strategic issues.

Right.

But like.

There could be something that comes after him.

So absolutely.

This is why I'm buying any dip in like defense stocks in Europe.

You know, like that's, that's kind of what I'm getting at.

Me too, but I think Jacob, yeah.

Yeah.

So we're on the same, but, but Jacob, where I think you

want to go, I can feel it.

I can feel it in your pores.

Like you just, you wanna go to what happens to Russia, right?

So here I am talking about Ukraine.

Matt's talking about Europe.

But the truth is like, and I've said this before on this pod, Russia

has an incredibly long history of effectively losing offensive operations,

offensive military operations, and having political change afterwards.

You know, and I think that there's no way that the current regime in

Russia like survives the peace.

I think Putin will declare.

Victory.

I think he'll ride that victory wave for a couple of months, maybe years even.

You know, like he will make us look stupid.

Jacob, you and I have been sitting here for three years

being like, oh, Putin's done.

Well egg on our face.

Um, or a bleeding on our face better.

But I think that eventually Putin ends up, I think the regime crumbles because

what they got from Ukraine is so little and the resources they expanded are so

great that I think eventually the big takeaway from this conflict is that there

must be a reckoning inside of Russia.

And that may not be good because while Marco here saying like,

well, I don't think Putin cares.

He just wants the villages so he can get a mission accomplished

banner and declare victory.

Maybe what replaces him is someone who actually believes

in the historical lesson.

He taught Tucker Carlson on that pod.

Yeah, and to your point, I mean, this, this is where, I mean, C ZR

Nicholas II lasted after he got his ass whooped by the Japanese in 19 0 4, 19 0 5.

Um, lasted another 12 years now.

He had to install the Duma, uh, in between then.

And you had the beginning of, of the First World War.

But we don't get the Russian Revolution until, uh, 1917.

And I just bring that up, up to say, you know, maybe it'll take 10 years, maybe,

maybe Putin harvest some organs from kids and he lasts another 10 or 15 years.

But when, when that regime does fall apart, um, it will have global impact.

I mean, it'll, it'll probably reverberate.

We're not even thinking about,

there was an attempted revolution in, in 1905, so Yeah, that too.

Yes.

So, so one thing I always point out is, and I mean I'm not, I'm not just entirely

relying on the historical analogies.

They're useful, but I mean.

You do have a strong reason to believe that social unrest will bubble up sooner

than people realize, because there will be a big drop in industrial production.

And so there'll be effectively a recession after the war.

And this is the biggest pushback I get when I put forward that.

And so here, my whole point about the ceasefire or the, or whatever, is that

Putin needs to embrace Trump while he has this potential of getting sanction

relief and a, uh, sort of, uh, great power status by doing a deal directly

with the United States, because that probably does buy him some time at home.

Whereas the idea that the war ends in sort of a whimper after just

dragging on forever and you don't get any sanction relief and you

don't get any improved prestige or status, that could just No, I love

that point.

That could be, I love that point, Matt,

you know, the image of Putin as weak and failed, and he's

got a, you know, you were saying almost wasteland ahead of him.

You're almost saying he should actually send sell the Northwestern

part of Dansky hasn't conquered.

Yes, but what And and my that's and the point there is

really nuance, and of course this is extremely contentious 'cause it

requires you to say that Putin is not just fanatical about the war.

Right.

But, but you know, the Putin that we've seen in the past

used to take calculated risks.

The belief, yeah.

From 2022 to now is that he, he, he became unhinged.

But I guess I'm saying, well what if it's the same Putin?

And he actually does still recognize that, that that risks can be calculated

and that he, he's, I mean, if you're gonna start turning the Titanic,

you better start turning now.

Matt, how can you, how can anyone argue

that he's completely unhinged?

You know?

Yeah.